


It's Not Real

by Teh_Poet



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Drabble, Not Happy, Pining, Reichenbach Feels, Sad, preslash, this will be expanded later
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-26
Updated: 2014-09-26
Packaged: 2018-02-18 21:12:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2362319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teh_Poet/pseuds/Teh_Poet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For ExchangeLock ""What if John had caught a glimpse of Sherlock a few months after his "death" at St. Bart's?""</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's Not Real

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lifeastoldbygingerr](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=lifeastoldbygingerr).



It’s not real. It’s not real, none of it’s real.

John opened his eyes and stared at the spot on the street corner again. Searching, hoping against hope that he had been right, that he had been wrong. It’d be just like the bastard to go and do something twisted like that. To jump, but not to have landed, broken and bloody. To have simply floated down the four stories to land gently amongst the confusion and drama and to walk away like nothing happened leaving John behind to wallow in his grief and misery because he was too stupid to have put it all together.

He wasn’t a complete idiot, he knew he’d done it, knew why he’d done it, but sometimes it was just… hard to come to terms with…

And here he was, two? three? months later (two months and two weeks, three days) and a shock of dark curly hair above the heads of the crowd has stopped him short, and he’d wound up leaning against a wall, struggling to keep his composure.

John Watson, just fucking breath. There’s nothing there, nothing to get worked up over, there’s millions of brunettes in the world, get a fucking grip.

He still couldn’t make out the figure that had set him off. The instantaneous recognition had sent his world spinning end over end for just long enough to lose his step and face plant into the rough brick and now all he had were hazy memories and panicked breaths and a lump in his throat and 

ou will not cry, and that is an order, soldier.

“Are you alright, sir?”

He looked down and there was a young girl, too young for him, looking up at him with concern in her eyes- no… it was pity- and the revulsion he felt creeping up his esophagus must have shown on his face, because she took a step back and now that he thought about it she looked a little ragged around the edges, too many layers and what was she carrying in that giant bag?, and he tried to open his mouth have you spoken to him, did he send you to check on me? but all that came out was a dry croak and she tripped backwards, walking quickly away and

Of course he didn’t send her, she wasn’t one of his, and even if she had been, she definitely wasn’t now he’s dead.

Christ, he was losing it… He couldn’t keep up with this changing world, this world that moved on after The Fall and left him trying to keep up but utterly unable to for all he tried to pull himself along every morning but he had to- didn’t he? He had to push his way through a life that kept him alone and tormented him with these tantalizing image, these snatches of impossibility

yes impossible, not improbable you great git

that literally left him reeling. He’d never see him again, not for real, it would only ever be in his imagination, a figment of his deteriorating mind, a result of the trauma and the hit to his psyche

and Christ, Sherlock, why did you do it?

He knew. He knew why he did it, and consequently he knew why he kept seeing him everywhere when he really wasn’t anywhere. And that more than anything was going to be what finally wore him down.

John looked up and finally saw where he was, what he was standing outside of, and with another glance over his shoulder

nowhere in sight, it’s not real he’s not there it’s all in your head get over it get over him

he walked into the pub, never mind it was barely three in the afternoon, he couldn’t do this anymore.


End file.
